Q&A: Quilting with Modern Handcraft!
We're so excited to have gotten the chance to get our heads together with Nicole Daksiewicz of @modernhandcraft to talk quilting tips and tricks! Nicole is a master modern quilter and pattern designer, who's sewn with both the PBS Fabrics prints and Painter's Palette Solids! Read on for her stories and insights into how she started quilting, her sources of information, and most importantly, where to put all these quilts!
Sew Nicole 's Project in Quilts & More!Nicole designed this beautiful pillow pattern for Scrap Lab in the Winter issue of Quilts & More. Grab the magazine and get these patterns today! CLICK FOR MORE INFO
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Nicole: I love the minimalist look of a solids quilt. Combining colors to create a feeling is my favorite part. I also love that solid quilts have a timeless quality to them. This is why I choose solid quilts for my pattern covers - you never really know when the pattern was released! As far as prints go I am a fan of really modern designs, fun prints, designs that have amazing color combinations. Large scale and small scale - I love them all!
Nicole: My mom taught me to sew when I was younger, she would always make me cute outfits for school. I thought it was amazing until I hit a certain age and totally lost interest / was embarrassed about it (I wonder if my son is going to soon be embarrassed over all of the quilts in our house? hahaha). I became interested in sewing again when I had my first home in Phoenix around 2007. I bought myself a really basic sewing machine at target and started making pillow covers / home decor type stuff with the skills my mom taught me when I was a kid. Blogs were quite popular around then as well so I began following home decor blogs, and this brought me to quilting blogs. Seeing modern quilts for the first time was a huge eye opener - I loved the look! From here I taught myself by using tutorials found in blogs and also videos on youtube. There was also quite a bit of “figuring stuff out on my own” which might have caused some bad habits in the beginning.
Nicole: I really wish I had known to take a class or two in the beginning to learn some basics. My first couple of quilts were kind of haphazardly sewn together, and the binding was hideous - but I made them myself and was SO proud!
Nicole: I’m a huge fan of home design and architecture magazines - as well as monthly catalogs like Crate and Barrel / CB2 - seeing color trends is very inspiring.
Nicole: My friends would tell you that I have probably seen every major tv show known to man. I love having a show on while I am sewing in the background. Around the holidays I love a cheesy holiday movie too! When I am not watching something on my Ipad I am also a fan of podcasts. I recently asked my Instagram followers for recommendations and they gave me a full years worth of listening! I have them saved in my Instagram highlights if you need a good one to listen to.
Nicole: My favorite tool is probably a hera marker - this is fantastic for creating creases as a guide for sewing, especially if its a design that is too tricky to use just your walking foot and guide bar. Other favorite tools would be a guide bar - this is the little silver L shaped rod that sticks into your walking foot - if I didn’t have this with my machine my straight line quilting would be more of an organic wavy line look. I also love a good rotary blade - don’t forget to change your blades, I feel like I go too long before I change them and am so mad at myself for waiting. Makes all the difference in the world!
Nicole: There are stacks in a large basket in my living room, on a couple of quilt racks. I have my pattern cover quilts wrapped up to protect them and then I have so many down in my studio in the basement. I think I have around 40 or so just in my studio. Last time I had this many I hosted a fundraiser for the Houston flood that happened a few years ago and was able to get rid of quite a bit for that. I might try to sell some or donate some here in the near future because I hate to see them just sitting around waiting to be loved. There are some in the bedrooms around my house as well...so several are being well loved and many more are waiting for the opportunity.
Thank you so much for your words of wisdom, Nicole!